Thursday, December 29, 2016

A small Austrian firm making ski goggles has proved sex sells after they tripled their turnover by posting pictures of themselves wearing their gear while naked on the internet.

The ski glasses producer "Naked Optics" from the sound of music city of Salzburg on the border of Germany is currently running its naked people campaign on social media and it is proving an enormous success.

They said they were inspired to come up with the saucy strategy by the company's name "Naked Optics", and that it involved one of the company founders and some friends getting undressed in front of the camera to advertise the ski goggles.

The manufacturer has been producing its unique line in China for a low price, using the same company as other big name manufacturers, meaning customers get the same quality at a lower price, hence the no-frills name "Naked Optics". They are also selling them exclusively on the internet, which again cuts costs.

Christoph Fink, 28, the founder of the company, said: "This way, the margins for the retail sector are shortened in some cases to 100 percent, while the costs for the design and the fee for the employees are removed."

Police in France are hunting for a Chilean man suspected of killing a Japanese student in the eastern town of Besancon, sources close to the case said Thursday.

The man is the ex-boyfriend of Narumi Kurosaki who was studying French at the university in Besancon before she went missing on the night of December 4th-5th. Although her body has not been found, police have concluded she was killed after studying CCTV footage, checking her phone records and speaking to witnesses who reported screams at her university residence.The Chilean suspect, who was in contact with Kurosaki before she arrived in France in August, is believed to have travelled to his home country, the source added, asking not to be named.Police have also discarded a possible sighting of Kurosaki two weeks after her disappearance at a cafe in the town of Verdun, 300 kilometres to the north of Besancon. "Judicial police have identified the girl seen in Verdun. It's not Narumi," a police source told AFP, asking to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

A 45-year-old woman was attacked and sexually assaulted while out running in Munich’s central park on Sunday evening.

The woman was running in the Oberföhring area of the park at some time between 7.30pm and 8.20pm when the attack happened, police report.The English Garden is a park which stretches through northern Munich into the town centre, following the bank of the Isar river.The woman lost consciousness during the assault. When she came to she found herself lying away from the path. She then went to a nearby restaurant where she was picked up by police and emergency services.Due to the wounds she had suffered, she was then brought to hospital.Police say that the current state of their investigation leads them to believe the woman was sexually assaulted.The murder commission have now taken over the enquiry due to the severity of the woman’s injuries. She is not however in a life-threatening situation.Police say they are withholding further information for the sake of the investigation.The attacker is described as male, 40 to 50 years old and wearing dark jogging clothes and a bobble hat.

A young man felt so provoked by a couple kissing on a zebra crossing that he drove them over, killing the woman, prosecutors in Frankfurt said on Wednesday.

Acting under the influence of alcohol, the 26-year-old stopped at a zebra crossing when he noticed a couple kissing on the road, according to the prosecutors.When they carried on kissing regardless of the traffic on the road, he drove on, stopping two metres in front of them, in the incident which took place in September 2015.But the couple still kept kissing. Feeling provoked, the young man put his foot on the pedal and drove into them.The 38-year-old male was lightly injured in the crash. But the 40-year-old woman fell under a front wheel of the car and died through suffocation.

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Security Committee of Nineveh Provincial Council announced on Wednesday killing a number of the Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers who attacked three neighborhoods in the eastern side of Mosul.

Head of the Security Committee, Mohamed al-Bayati, said in a press statement, “Members of the IS attacked the neighborhoods of al-Nour, al-Ta’mim and al-Qadisiyah in the eastern side of Mosul.”

“The terrorist group used suicide bombers and booby-trapped vehicles in the attacks that were repulsed by the Counter-Terrorism forces,” Bayati added.

“The Counter-Terrorism forces killed a number of the attackers, as well as destroying some of the booby-trapped vehicles used in the attack,” Bayati further explained.

Moreover, Bayati revealed that the IS takes advantage of the bad weather to launch attacks on liberated neighborhoods.

He also revealed that security forces are completely controlling the situation in these neighborhoods, and IS couldn’t advance any further in these areas.

Joint security forces, backed by Army Aviation and international coalition, continue liberating the remaining areas of Mosul.

Breast milk is not usually an ingredient in Swedish Lucia saffron buns. But one food blogger has gone viral after she made and ate the traditional pastries using her own milk.

"It was my husband who had the idea," Jennifer Barmer, who runs the vegan food blog Living Green together with him, told The Local. "He has several friends who have baked using breast milk."Swedes gorge on saffron buns – called lussekatter or lussebullar – every year on and around December 13th, the day the saint Lucia is celebrated across the Nordic country.So Barmer spent a few days collecting the spare milk left over from breastfeeding her young baby before she baked a batch of the buns a couple of days ahead of Lucia."They turned out great. If I hadn't known it was breast milk I would just have thought they were ordinary Lucia buns with a bit more sugar than usual," she said.READ ALSO: Six things not to tell a Swede on Lucia dayWhile Sweden has a reputation for being tolerant and family friendly, the subject of breastfeeding has been hotly debated in recent years. Add to the equation that breast milk Lucia buns are not particularly common, and Barmer's twist on the recipe quickly went viral.The former contestant of TV baking competition Hela Sverige Bakar (based on The Great British Bake Off) said the reactions have been both positive and negative."Many women have said that they've also used breast milk to make for example pancakes, but have not dared to say anything. Sometimes someone has to be the first one to say it for others to dare admit it too. It shows how shameful breast milk is still considered to be.""Others have said things like 'yuck', 'disgusting', 'breast milk is for babies'. And these are people who drink a different kind of breast milk, from the cow, on a daily basis," she added.

It’s not unusual for stores across Spain to get into the seasonal spirit with their own special version of a nativity scene in the shop window.

But when Non Sit Peccatum, a sex shop in the town of Talavera de la Reina near Toledo chose to display sex toys depicting the iconic biblical scene, it caused somewhat of fuss.READ MORE: 12 weird and wonderful Christmas traditions celebrated in SpainShop owner Héctor Valdivielso commissioned an artist to paint the figures of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus on ceramic dildos.At first, the display proved popular and people would pause outside to take photos of the unusual nativity scene.But it wasn’t long before it started to draw negative attention and the owner was subjected to angry outbursts by people claiming to be offended."A man with his wife ordered me to remove the offending scene and said that if I didn’t he would remove it himself," Valdivielso recounted on his Facebook account, adding that he was subject to a barrage of insults and had to call the police.Next the shop sign was vandalised with the word ‘pecadores’ - sinners – and the owner discovered a group calling themselves the Children of the Virgin Mary had launched a boycott on the store.One day a crowd of around a dozen people gathered outside the shop to harangue customers."It was affecting my business," explained Valdivielso. "Who wants to come to a store like this to hear a sermon?".Last week, he withdrew the window display and replaced it with a poster inviting passersby to vote on whether he should reinstate it.

MEXICO CITY - Carrying large idols of the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe on their backs, millions of devotees of all ages on Monday visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, breaking any previous attendance record.

As every Dec. 12, the Calzada de Guadalupe Avenue of the capital was flooded with the tide of pilgrims who formed long lines to enter the church with excitement, faith and exhaustion.

"She is everything to us and she is so miraculous. And that's why we come here to pray for a miracle. We come to ask for a baby. I already have babies, I have three, but (...) now I want (another)," 32-year-old Noemi excitedly told EFE during her first visit to the church.

2016 marks the 485th anniversary of the Virgin Guadalupe's appearance to indigenous Juan Diego on the Tepeyac hill several times, the last time on Dec. 12.

As reported by the Secretariat of Public Security of the capital, more than 7.11 million pilgrims have come to the church this year.

The pilgrims came from all over and arrived on foot, by car or bus and even by air. Pierre Gondard came from the south of France together with a group of devotees from his country.

His emotion was evident within a few meters of being able to see the Virgin closely, with which Pope Francis shared some 20 minutes of prayer alone in February.

"We are in a march of humility and God gives what he wants to give," he reflected shortly before entering the basilica.

Around the basilica, many of the believers spent the night lying on the street on cardboard boxes.

Covered with blankets, Jorge Antonio, 11, rested a few hours after riding a bicycle for six hours to visit the virgin and "pray for the family."

With an empty stomach, he said how difficult it was to be part of this tradition of his town, Atotonilco de Tula, Hidalgo, in central Mexico, which performs the pilgrimage on bicycle since 35 years.

The group of 150 people from his town spent a few hours to sing to the dark-skinned Virgin at six o'clock in the morning and then returned to the village.

Many devotees came as a family, such as the family of Luis Martinez, who said that he came walking from the town of Amecameca, Mexico State, to pray for the health of his wife, who had undergone operations at her knee several times.

The Ministry of Public Security of Mexico City mobilized 3,200 agents and 800 auxiliary police to receive the believers.

A woman at the local sheriff’s office said a hoax had not been “ruled out,” but the sheriff later said they believe the abduction was real.

“They had been set in some grass with the screen facing up, and then the earbuds to the phone were loosely coiled and appeared to be placed on the screen,” he said. “It did somewhat appear to be that it was placed there purposely.”

Friday, December 2, 2016

The bizarre story of a spy for Germany's domestic secret service who was revealed to be an Islamist got even stranger when media reported on Wednesday that he was also once a gay porn star.

Both Bild and the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the 51-year-old former employee of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had appeared in gay porn movies before his conversion to Islam in 2014.According to Bild, agents found the pornographic films in which he appeared while searching his home. The material is not of relevance to the investigation, but will remain a footnote to what is fast becoming the most surreal spy scandal in modern German history.DPA reports that this is the first time that the BfV has found an Islamist among its agents.Bild reports that the man was originally from Spain, but had later become a German citizen. Also a father of four children, he had hidden his radicalization from his family.The agency said on Tuesday that the man had "made Islamist remarks online under a false name, and had offered internal information during online chats".His chat partner was believed to be another BfV employee. According to the Washington Post, he gave away such precise information that the agents were quickly able to identify him and arrested him the next day.German media had reported that he was believed to have been planning a bombing at the BfV headquarters in the western city of Cologne.Der Spiegel and Die Welt said the suspect had partially admitted to the allegations by making references to bomb attacks carried out "in the name of Allah".But a BfV spokeswoman told AFP that she could not confirm media reports that he was plotting an attack, saying there was no "evidence of a real danger to the office or its workers".The Washington Post reported that a senior official from the BfV said those who interviewed the man say he may have been mentally ill, and perhaps even had multiple personalities, raising questions about how he could have been employed in the first place.

Spanish police said on Friday that they have arrested a British fugitive who was convicted in Britain of raping two teenage boys.

Officers arrested the unidentified man on Monday in Benidorm on Spain's eastern coast less than 24 hours after a European arrest warrant was issued for him, police said in a statement.Spanish police said he fled to Spain after it was discovered that he sexually abused two brothers aged 14 and 16 on 22 occasions in Britain between 2007 and 2010."The fugitive befriended the victims' parents, who allowed him to spend time with their sons, unaware of the sexual acts the boys were subjected to," the statement said.A British court sentenced the man in absentia to 43 years in jail for six counts of rape and several counts of sexual assault on the minors. Spanish police had already detained him for possession of a "huge amount" of child pornography which he shared online.

MOSCOW – The Russian president said on Thursday that he is ready to cooperate with the administration of United States President-elect Donald Trump in the fight against international terrorism.

During his annual State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin said “We hope to unite our forces with the United States in the fight against the real threat, not the fictional one – international terrorism.”

Putin emphasized that he is not interested in disputes or making new enemies, and wants to normalize relations with the U.S. based on commitment “to a friendly, equal dialogue, to upholding the principles of justice and mutual respect in international affairs.”

He also said that U.S.-Russia cooperation to solve global and regional issues responds to the interests of the whole world.

Putin highlighted that this task is also fulfilled by Russian soldiers fighting in Syria, and warned that “attempts to upset the strategic balance are extremely dangerous and could lead to a global catastrophe.”

As for the European Union, the head of the Kremlin said he is prepared for a dialogue to create a Eurasian union.

The Russian leader also shed light on strengthening the cooperation with Asian countries, especially China and India, but denied that this would dictate a cooling of relations with the United States or the European Union.

ISTANBUL - Three Turkish soldiers were killed and three others wounded on Friday in clashes with Kurdistan Workers' Party fighters in Hakkari province, southeastern Turkey, according to security forces.

Several PKK fighters were also injured in the crossfire, according to the semi-official Anadolu news agency.

Security forces told Anadolu that the operation was ongoing on Güven mountain with the support of the Turkish air force.

BEIJING - China's Supreme Court Friday revoked the sentence of a man, executed 21 years ago for raping and killing a woman in the northern Hebel province, after another man confessed to the crime.

Nie Shubin was executed in 1995 at the age of 21 years and the case resurfaced in 2005 when Wang Shujin admitted he had committed the crime.

In 2014, the Supreme Court decided to review the case and on Friday concluded that Nie was innocent.

The evidence used to sentence Nie was neither sufficient nor accurate and did not meet the conditions for a sentence, according to a statement by the court.

Nie confessed to the crime just a few days after his arrest although it appears he did it under pressure while in custody, his lawyer had said at the time.

In the statement, the Supreme Court says there are doubts regarding the veracity and legality of Nie's confession, which in principle corroborated the other evidence.

The court's decision was received with some bitterness by Nie's family, who has been proclaiming his innocence in the courts and his mother told a local daily that she was happy with the decision but that it had come too late.

In its latest report Amnesty International reported that torture continues to be a part of police routines in China, which has a very high percentage of sentences and the highest number of executions in the world, according to human rights groups.

"The overturning of the original verdict is a very positive move, and shows how some within the Chinese government - especially the Supreme People's Court - are willing to correct historic injustices," AI researcher William Nee said.

"However, this case also illustrates that the death penalty as currently applied in China is still flawed and prone to mistakes. The only way to truly ensure that tragic cases like Nie Shubin don't recur, is to stop tinkering with the machinery of death, and abolish the death penalty," he told EFE.